The 3 Biggest Problems With 'Why Jews Hate Palin'

If you write a 3,800 word piece titled "Why Jews Hate Palin" and publish it in Commentary--a conservative, Jewish-focused magazine--you're begging for a controversy. That's what Jennifer Rubin did, and her article is drawing more fire every day. In it, she argues that Jews are particularly disdainful of the former Alaskan governor--and not only because "she is a conservative and...the vast majority of Jews are not." Rather, Rubin says, it's because Palin's folksy persona, assertive Christianity, large family, and
"intellectual unfitness" is
particularly damning in the eyes of Jews, whom she describes as "overwhelmingly pro-choice," urban, secular, educated, and "culturally sophisticated."

In a strikingly unified response from liberals as well as conservatives, most commentators are trashing the piece as illogical, poorly-argued, and anti-Semitic. Here are the biggest problems bloggers have with Rubin's argument:

No Evidence That Jews, in Particular, Hate Palin

'Lots of People Dislike Sarah Palin,' points out fellow conservative Jew and Commentator contributor David Frum.
"Rubin passes lightly over the question whether Jews in fact do hate
Palin more than other people do. The sole evidence she cites on behalf
of her assertion is a September 2008 poll in which Jews disapproved of
Palin by a 54-37 margin. That does not look like foaming hatred to me,
and anyway those numbers are now 15 months out of date." He also notes
that Palin "polls poorly among the young, among women, among
independents. A plurality even of
Republican women regard her as unqualified for the presidency ... this
may be just another manifestation of the
old rule about Jews being like other people, only more so."

Shouldn't This, Theoretically, Be Easy to Prove? "I
believe that Jews disproportionately hate Palin. I just find it odd
that Rubin does such a poor job proving such an intuitive premise,"
says left-leaning The New Republic's Jonathan Chait. He points to numbers Rubin cites which seem to prove "Palin's selection was more popular among Jews than the
McCain-Palin ticket."

Conflates Jews and Liberals

Newflash: Jews Are Liberals "Jews don't dislike Palin any more than any other group of liberal
people does," argues Matthew Yglesias at Think Progress. "So all you’re really left with is the question of why
liberals don’t like Palin. Of course we don't like her because she's
very conservative."

A Transferred TropeJonathan Chait summarizes Rubin's position: "Jews are snobs. They're hung up on academic
credentials, biased against rural Americans, gun owners, the military,
and the working class. This, of course, is a classic Bush-era trope
against liberals."

An Unmentioned Source of Jew-Palin Disagreement Gawker's Alex Pareene
breaks with the general response, pointing out that Jews may truly hate
Palin more than other liberals do. Why? Pareene thinks it's Palin's
anti-Semitic stance. One example, he says, is her church, "that invited
the Jews for Jesus to come around to explain
that the Jews had been persecuted for centuries because they didn't
acknowledge the divinity of Jesus." Also, she quoted "crazy-ass
antisemite Westbook Pegler in her ... convention speech," and was
photographed "with a copy of the official magazine of the antisemitic
John Birch Society on her desk." David Frum has a similar take: "Just guessing, but I think the real and most fundamental problem Jews have with Palin is not her gleeful ignorance, but her willful divisiveness."

Recycles Every Anti-semitic Jewish Stereotype Known to Man

A Parade of Bigotry "It really reads like a parody of right wing anti-semitism
through the ages," laments blogger Sir Charles at Cogitamus. For example: "The Jews -- they're all about the fancy book
l'arnin', the irony and sarcasm, the baby-killing, and the accumulation
of fancy degrees from elite academic institutions" Adds David Schraub at The Moderate Voice, "it is rare, exceedingly rare, to find a piece so openly
contemptuous, so nakedly trafficking in anti-Jewish stereotyping, in a
mainstream American magazine."

Standard-Issue Anti-SemitismJonathan Chait argues that the standard anti-liberal rhetoric Rubin recycles in her piece is also standard anti-Jew rhetoric: "Indeed,
in Europe, anti-liberals traditionally incorporated
anti-Semitism ... using the disproportionate
presence of Jews among the liberal intelligentsia to help give weight
to this attack. When American conservatives revived this trope during
the Bush era, they scrubbed it of all anti-Semitic content ... It's
beyond strange to see this argument explicitly targeted at Jews, in a
Jewish publication of all places."

Don't Blame Palin, Blame Jews "A reasonable person," says Politics Daily's David Corn, "might
note that if prominent
conservatives and liberals have concluded that Palin was lacking in
intellectual firepower, the serious issue is whether Palin had (or has)
the brains ... But Rubin dodges the
big question -- is Palin dim? -- and instead asks, 'What is it about
Palin that so grates on American Jews?'" This ends up leading to an
argument that Corn finds disturbing-- blaming Jews for not loving
Palin: "The problem with Sarah Palin for Jews and non-Jews is Sarah
Palin. But
Rubin contends the true problem is with the Jews -- their insularity,
their elitism, their conceits."

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